


I'm Sinking Fast (It's Alright)

by jolt



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 06:15:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9479072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolt/pseuds/jolt
Summary: Dex blinks up at the ceiling a few times, trying to reckon with himself and the constant loop of what are we doing what are we doing what are we doing spinning through his dehydrated brain.When he turns his head, Nursey's already dozing off. Dex sighs, gazing back up at the ceiling, puzzled by the warm press of Nursey’s leg against his, the very insistence of them sharing a bed.Friends don’t do this, he thinks.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title's from She's the Prettiest Girl at the Party, and She Can Prove It with a Solid Right Hook by frnkiero andthe cellabration
> 
> This fic is an ode to industrious, Irish, confused Mainer Dex and the decidedly unchill boy he pines for.
> 
> Also, does it count as canon-divergence if we don't actually know what Nursey and Dex were getting up to in the latest updates?? Consider the blanks filled! (Sort of). Yay!

The second time he meets Derek Nurse, Dex has a hickey, bright purple and horrifying, swelling over the pulse point on his jaw. It’s admittedly hideous, and shameful enough that Dex pretended to have a cold so that his mother wouldn’t question him wearing a turtleneck at the end of August in Maine. Angie-from-Bangor, who flirted awkwardly with him every time he delivered fresh lobsters to the side door of the restaurant where she waited tables, pulled him aside after he paid her a final visit before leaving for Samwell. She crowded him around the back and kissed him brashly but sweetly as “something to remember her by.”

When Dex encounters Derek Nurse by sheer accident on the Lake Quad, their first day at Samwell, having known each other a grand total of four hours, he certainly remembers Angie-from-Bangor by the way the sunlight glints in Nurse’s eyes when he spies the ugly splotch on Dex’s jaw.

“Fun summer, teammate?” He asks, voice smooth and wholly unaffected by Dex’s deepening blush.

“I don’t know you.” Dex answers, and it’s obviously the wrong thing to say, because Derek’s mouth curls into a grin and he doesn’t leave Dex alone.

“Who’s the girl?”

Dex peers around the quad, darting the question by scanning campus for the building of his next class. He and Nurse fall into step next to each other, the product of Dex’s laboured pace, affecting the cool disposition he utterly lacks. When Dex doesn’t answer for a whole five seconds, Derek waves his hand obnoxiously in front of Dex’s face.

“Her name’s Angie.” Dex mutters, very much against the council of his conscience.

“Cute.” Derek answers and holds out his fist. Dex isn’t going to pound it because they literally, like, just met and Dex can’t read Derek enough to know what kind of fist bump this is meant to be. Derek, unperturbed by Dex’s lack of engagement, grabs Dex’s hand, curls it into a fist, and taps it against his own.

  
This is the beginning of everything.

 

 

Fall

 

Dex doesn’t really like parties.

Dex likes drinking (he’d probably be expelled from the Pointdexter family if he didn’t), but he feels awkward around large crowds of strangers and he always ends up saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. If he’d been smarter and perhaps slightly more self-aware, maybe he wouldn’t have accepted a position on an NCAA hockey team at a notoriously small, raucous university. Mind you, if he hadn’t, then he’d never know the glory of being the anchor for a winning flip cup team, or of being captained by the son of an NHL legend. It’s a love-hate relationship, him and kegsters, despite tonight only being his second of freshman year.

For fun, Dex makes a mental tally of the pros and cons of kegsters, half searching the Haus for Chowder to be his pong partner. When he runs into Derek Nurse on the deck, it's more of an unfortunate accident than anything else. Over the past few weeks, Dex has learned that even being civil to Nurse can be challenging at the best of times.

“Uh, hey.” Dex says, unsure of what to say. The last time they interacted, at practice earlier that day, Dex called him a brat for not passing the puck and Nursey checked him into the boards, despite being on the same scrummage team.

“Sup.” Nursey replies. He’s leaning against the railing, Solo cup in hand, gazing up at the sky.

“Alone out here?” Dex asks. He knows right away it’s not the right thing to say, because his tone sounds too judgey. Besides, Dex knows better than anyone what it’s like to seek a few minutes to yourself at a loud party.

Nursey gracefully quirks his left eyebrow and doesn’t say anything. Distantly, Dex feels rather than sees the disruptive presence of an advancing LAX bro.

“Derek Nurse!”

As this guy approaches, swaying in a sea-foam Lacoste polo, in a cloud of bad cologne, Dex already knows enough about the guy to know that he’s an asshole.

“Hey, what’s up, Trent?” Nursey asks, cool as a goddamn cucumber. Dex wants to turn around and walk the hell away because he is nowhere near drunk enough to deal with some guy named Trent.

“Man, I heard you’re playing hockey here.” Trent says, voice booming in between hiccups. “How the fuck did they let you on the team?”

Nursey laughs. "I am actually good at it, you know." He answers, completely unaffected by the ridiculous question. Trent’s obviously never seen Nursey’s slapshot.

“Nah, man, lacrosse is where it’s at.” Trent answers. All of a sudden, he slaps the beer out of Nursey’s hand, and it falls to the wooden deck with a resounding, wet clang. It’s a loud enough sound to alert the other people on the deck, despite being scattered and otherwise very much absorbed in their own business. “You clumsy fuck.” He slurs, and laughs at his own joke. “See you around.”

“What the hell was that?” Dex asks, back straightening and jaw tightening. He’s aiming for casual irritation, but fears his voice’s cadence exposes him as protective and angry. Either way, Dex feels oddly territorial. Whether it’s of the sanctity of the Haus, the kegster, the SMH team, or Nursey, Dex can’t quite identify at the moment.

“Oh, that guy?” Nursey shrugs. “My best friend from Andover.”

“Dude.” Dex says, and lets the monosyllable tremble in the air between them, desperate for some vibration in the airwaves to keep him from totally shattering. It’s the only thing he can think to say, too, especially when Nursey seems to be shrinking away, kicking his empty Solo cup and watching it roll in circles around their corner of the deck.

If he hadn’t just witnessed the most random act of assholery, Dex would probably be so out of there. He and Nursey get along about as well as oil and water, and despite Chowder’s puppy dog eyes, hanging out with him for more than ten minutes really grates on Dex’s nerves. Ransom tried to explain that every legendary pair of defensemen go through some rough waters before achieving perfect, drift compatible harmony, but Dex doesn’t buy it. Guys like Nursey, who’ve never worked a day in their lives, permanently exist in a bubble of irresponsible chill that Dex refuses to believe could ever burst, regardless of how long they spend on the ice together.

And yet, if this LAX bro, who’s evidently convinced a popped collar is still a good look, whose slimy smile and obnoxious behaviour made Dex want to both retreat into himself like a turtle and punch the kid’s lights out, is somehow Nursey’s best friend, then Dex feels almost… pity. Nursey’s annoying, sure, but he’s nothing like Trent, and if that’s the only kind of friendship he knows, then Dex can extend an olive branch for one goddamn night. His parents raised a Pointdexter, after all.

“C’mon, man, let’s get you another drink.” Dex says. Nursey’s his teammate, after all. And what is it the older guys are always saying? ‘We’ve got your back’?

Nursey shrugs, clearly forcing a smile, but leaning in to the hand Dex tentatively places between his shoulders to guide him back into the Haus. “Buy me dinner first, Pointdexter.”

Dex rolls his eyes. “That doesn’t even make sense. You could totally get someone a drink before dinner. It’s a logical order.”

The laugh that escapes Nurseys lips surprises Dex, if only because it sounds so pure and genuine. “You’re ridiculous, dude.”

In the end, they get a few more drinks together, and Nursey doesn’t say thank you, but he doesn’t have to. Dex has his back, after all, and he finds himself not minding it so much when they spend the rest of their night in each other’s company, bickering incessantly but without animosity.

 

 

Winter

Like they do most nights, Nursey picks Dex up from his dorm and they walk together to grab a bite to eat, and meander over to the Haus, where more often than not, they end up watching Criminal Minds with Chowder and eating whatever’s left of Bitty’s pie. Nursey insists on keeping a single textbook open on the floor to at least maintain some guise of studying so that they don’t completely feel like they’re wasting their time. They all consciously ignore the unspoken claim Nursey and Dex have on the ugly green couch, relegating Chowder to the lumpy futon perpendicular to them. It’s a routine that they’ve developed, and while it probably shouldn’t work, it does. Dex even enjoys these nights, despite himself.

Periodically, Nursey will whisper “This is so fucked,” and wiggle his feet deeper into Dex’s lap. The resulting blush that splotches across Dex’s cheeks is uncomfortable, at best, and horribly revealing, at worst. Dex artfully conceals his embarrassment as irritation, and halfheartedly shoves Nursey away from him.

“Grow up, man.” He replies, chirping having become instinct with Nursey, and ignores the palpitations in his chest.

Chowder, who sits with one leg draped over the edge of the futon, and a bag of barbecue chips in his lap, looks up from his phone and cringes. “The guy eats people, dude.” He points out, while tapping out something on his phone. “It’s kind of messed up.”

“Chowder, who are you even texting?” Nursey asks, sheltering his eyes to avoid watching the TV-appropriate carnage taking place on screen. “Aren’t the only people you talk to, like, in this Haus — nay, in this room?”

Chowder throws one of his chips at Nursey, who flicks it off so it lands in between the couch cushions. It’s no mystery how that couch got to be so disgusting.

“Her name’s Caitlin.” Chowder supplies without hesitation, grinning from ear to ear. It would be endearing, if Nursey didn’t choose that moment to swing his entire body over to face Chowder, unbothered by the way his limbs ungracefully collide into Dex in the process.

“Dude - watch it.” Dex scolds, shoving at Nursey’s legs. Nursey retaliates by kicking back.

They push each other for a few moments, but stop when the lights in the Haus flicker several times before going out. At first, everything is silent — Dex concludes for the first time since he got to Samwell — but then Holster (who had been in the shower) starts screaming, which prompts Ransom to start screaming, and above it all, Dex can hear Bitty coaxing a pie to keep baking in the powerless oven.

Dex instantly hops to action. Small town coastal Maine was a prime location for power outages.

“Chowder,” Dex says, using the commanding tone of voice he picked up from the lobster boat, “go see if Shitty or Ransom — or Bitty, for that matter — have any candles we can burn for light.” Chowder nods and jumps out of his seat, nearly colliding into the bookshelf. “Nurse, come with me.”

Dex can’t see Nursey’s reaction in the sudden pitch black of the living room, but he imagines it involved a dramatic eye roll. Fortunately, Nursey follows him outside.

They round the corner to the side of the Haus, where Dex had the forethought to stack some logs he’d picked up on a whim during his last trip to Home Depot. He starts placing them on the ground and, after finding the ax he also left outside, starts splitting the logs into firewood. Nursey hovers somewhere to his left, invisible from Dex’s peripheral, and shines the flashlight from his phone so that Dex can see what he’s doing.

“Seriously, dude, did you grow up in the woods or something?” Nursey asks, pulling his wool peacoat closer around him. In a move Dex realizes is completely inherited from his mother, Dex scoffs internally at Nursey’s utter lack of appropriate dress for the cold weather.

“Pointdexters are industrious.” Dex replies, lifting the ax above his head and thrusting it down into the log in front of him, splitting it clean in two.

Nursey hovers the flashlight over the small pile of wood that’s accumulated and asks, “Do you think that’s enough?”

Dex nods, and collects the firewood in his arms after carefully replacing the ax between two logs — where no drunken LAX bro is likely to find it. This time, Dex follows Nursey, who keeps shooting him unreadable glances over his shoulder.

“You’re good at this stuff, huh?” He says before opening the front door. His cheeks are tinged rose from the cold, and Dex resolutely averts his gaze.

“I do what I have to do.” Dex shrugs. He goes inside.

By the time Dex adjusts the fireplace, opens the flue, and piles the wood in a manner conducive to burning, everyone has huddled in the living room with their coats and scarves on. Bitty looks especially frigid, and Dex wastes no more time before using Shitty’s lighter to light a student union newspaper and toss it onto the firewood.

“I literally don’t think we’ve ever had a fire in this fireplace.” Ransom says through chattering teeth.

Everyone hums in agreement and watches with childlike wonder as the fire cracks and snaps and slowly incinerates the logs.

“Congrats, Prometheus, you gave fire to mortals.” Nursey says, and there’s no trace of malice, no chirp — just dumb Derek Nurse making a dumb Classics reference while bumping their shoulders together.

Growing up in a family like the Pointdexters, Dex learned pretty early that when you have a problem, you have to fix it. And if you don’t know how to fix it right away, you try to figure it out, to teach yourself. That family ethos is, Dex considers, why he was so useful tonight. And yet, glancing between the guys, the fire, and Nursey, Dex can’t help but feel the certainty that his problem is of an entirely different nature from the ones he grew up fixing. Nursey, their dynamic, and whatever the hell it is Dex feels, are spectacularly remote from the comfort of writing code or repairing an appliance or chopping firewood.

 

 

Spring

 

Everyone had high hopes for that game, but they lose. It’s nobody’s fault and it’s everyone’s. In the end, they just got out-played, despite Nursey and Dex’s miraculously improved defensive line, despite the shared adrenaline from Jack’s impending promotion to the Falconers. Everyone was aware of the responsibility they had on the ice, they knew what they owed their captain, and yet —

They don’t win. It really fucking stings, but unlike Jack, Shitty, and a few of the others, this isn’t Dex’s last year on the SMH team. He still has a chance to win multiple championships, but Jack and Shitty deserved to win this year. Dex found himself latching to that thought as he laboured through the familiar motions of removing his jersey, his pads, his under armour. When they boarded the bus, everyone was spinning in their own orbits, too overcome by the crushing weight of failure and disappointment. That is, until Shitty loudly invite everyone to the Haus for an “evening of somber remembrance of a great fuckin’ season, kids”. Leave it to Shitty, Dex thought with a smile, and then had to restrain himself from crying.

Which is why he’s currently sitting on Nursey’s double bed, waiting for him to finish showering. Dex was convinced he could get ready in half the time it takes Nursey, and even set a timer on his phone so he could prove a point later. The gesture feels a bit hollow and stupid, because it’s not really that funny, but Dex truly doesn’t know what else to do. He’s always been bad at losing, especially in games that mean as much as tonight’s did. Nursey seemed chill, though, which was relieving in its own unique way. Leave it to Nursey to stay level in a crisis. For a split second, Dex thinks rock, and when Nursey emerges from the steaming bathroom with a towel slung low on his hips, he shakes the thought before he says something weird.

It’s April, but in true New England fashion, snow still clings to patches of the ground, mingling with the mud that pokes through underneath - a disastrous combination for Nursey’s new Adidas classics. Dex nods at River Quad, their shortcut to the Haus.

“Can your shoes handle this?” He asks gently, acutely aware of the care with which Nursey handles his footwear.

Nursey must not hear Dex, since he tugs on his arm, jerking him forward.

“Race you?”

And — when has Dex ever backed down from one of Nursey’s challenges? When has Dex not been drawn impossibly to Nursey? When has Dex not risen to the bait?

It’s just the two of them, running across campus with toothy smiles. It feels like slow motion

When they finally catch their breath, Nursey is beaming at him, stunning and paralyzing and earth-shattering. Dex, truthfully, doesn’t know how he got here, how they got to be so close. They’re like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, and Dex keeps waiting for them to crash. But they haven’t yet, and surely that means something. It makes him want to do something brash, like grab hold of Nursey’s hand or say something he’s almost guaranteed to regret. A tidal wave of emotion hits him as they arrive at the Haus - a torrential force that Dex truthfully doesn’t know how to decipher. They just lost a major NCAA hockey championship, which sucks yeah, but all Dex sees is Nursey.

When they walk through the front door, the Haus is strangely quiet. It would almost be unnerving, if not for the familiar comfort of Bitty rolling out emergency pie dough in the kitchen, and Jack reading (a book that looks like it weighs more than Bitty) at the table. Jack doesn’t look up when Dex and Nursey say hi, just offers his hand up in a silent greeting. His eyes are rimmed red, though, so Dex leaves him be.

The others are mulling about the living room, half engaged in Mario Kart, half reminiscing about the season with hard liquor and breaking voices. It’s too much for Dex, who feels as though every single move he’s made/action he’s taken/word he’s ever said, every stolen glance at Nursey only to find Nursey staring back, every roadie spent talking nonsense until curfew is all culminating to this moment. On a normal day, Dex is subpar at navigating he’s feelings. Tonight, he thinks he might just combust.

“Let’s go on the roof.” Nursey says, after surveying the room. Dex (blind, young, foolish) nods and follows.

Luckily, Shitty’s not in his room so the two of them can climb right through his window and onto the ledge of the roof. The shingles are damp from the rain last night, and Dex feels his jeans getting wet as he settles in next to Nursey.

“Great idea, Nurse.” Dex mutters. “Yeah, let’s go up onto the cold, wet fucking roof.”

“Shh, dude, the moon.” Nursey’s head is tipped up and he has the stupidest, laziest smile on his face. Not for the first time since they’ve met, Dex wonders if he’s completely fucking stoned.

“The moon? — oh my god, you are so cheesy.”

“So’s the moon.” Nurse drawls as he reclines, propping his elbows behind him. “Get it?” He winks.

Also not for the first time, Dex concedes he’s not completely fucking stoned - that’s just how Nursey is.

Dex rolls his eyes and looks up. The moon — a thin, silver toenail on the horizon — is unremarkable, yet Nursey is engrossed. Without a word, Nursey procures his obnoxious flask from the inside pocket of his down vest, unscrews the top, and passes it to Dex. It’s whiskey, because Nursey is a walking cliché sometimes, and it burns him as he swallows a large gulp.

“To our freshman season.” Dex toasts, though it feels incomplete without Chowder.

For whatever reason, this prompts Nursey to toss his head back and groan. Dex glances over at him.

“What?” He asks, aware that he’s probably indulging Nursey’s penchant for melodrama.

“We’re not frogs anymore, man.”

Nursey nudges his head so that it rests on Dex’s shoulder. “I liked being a frog with you.” He says. It feels like he’s trying to say something else, something more, but Dex is suddenly frozen in place, worried that any thought, any breath or movement will dislodge Nursey’s head from the crook of his shoulder. Despite the strings of code that feel like they write themselves whenever he’s parked behind a PC, Dex considers himself in the below-average to terrible range of reading signals from other people. If Angie-from-Bangor hadn’t all but shoved her tongue into his mouth, he’d still be sitting here, green as God’s good earth, without a clue that she ever reciprocated his summer crush. As Dex processes these thoughts, Nursey’s solid weight settled against him, their respective ankles hooked awkwardly, he realizes now’s probably not the best time to be reminiscing about Angie-from-Bangor.

“And Chowder.” Dex says, a halfhearted attempt at cutting the tension that may or may not just merely be a product of his hyperactive imagination.

Nurse grins and brings his hand up to paw at Dex’s jaw. “And Chowder.”

It’s stupid (so stupid) and Dex will most definitely go to the grave with this but —

Later, after Nursey’s picked his ass up and hauled it to bed, when Dex retires alone to the futon — he touches his shoulder, and he can still feel the gentle pressure from Nursey’s head, and the warmth spreading all through his chest like whiskey on a cold April night.

 

 

Summer

 

Summer is a haze of long working hours, salty air, and feeling palpably lonely despite being surrounded by his massive family and the few friends he’s kept in touch with. Despite the weird, tight feeling in his chest, Dex labours on through June, July.

He’s allotted mornings to his uncle’s lobster boat, and afternoons to his other uncle’s repair shop. The boat docks a ten-minute bike ride to the repair shop. Dex is a simple guy; he likes his midday commute to be as straightforward as possible, and likes to feel, at least, like his mother isn’t farming him around to her army of hard-working brothers without some ease on his part. In between the two is the famous Seashell Café, where Angie-from-Bangor has reclaimed her position as head waitress. Dex is honest enough with himself to admit that the floaty, jittery feelings he endured last summer have mostly, well, dissipated this time around.

He most certainly is not honesty enough with himself to empirically examine why that is.

On his rides around town, besides feeling the tides pulling in him like a second pulse, besides freckling from his shoulders to his knuckles, Dex participates every so often in the SMH group chat. He pretends not to clock the time it takes for someone (Nursey) to answer, and instead enjoys the feeling of belonging so liberally bestowed on him. Everyone’s making a huge deal of Jack at the Falconers’ training camp, naturally, and bumping shoulders with guys they watched on TV last season. Bitty’s back in Georgia, Ransom and Holster are MIA, their road trip having taken them through both the GTA and upstate New York, Shitty and Lardo are together on the Cape, Chowder’s way over on the West Coast, and Nursey’s all alone in his brownstone uptown, six measly hours away.

“How’s Angie?” Nurse asks one day, and maybe there’s a joke in his voice, maybe the joke simply is his voice, way down on the other end of the receiver. The real joke, Dex thinks, is that Nursey remembered Angie-from-Bangor at all.

“What?”

“That girl, from last summer.” Derek explains, slow and gently mocking. “Angie. You seeing her?”

Dex wants to shout that no, obviously he’s not. “Sort of — um, not really.” He answers instead. He’s seen Angie, who’s back from her own freshman year at UMass, and she’s complained to him about everything from her roommate to her parents to the outfits the owner of the Seashell Café has the girls wearing this year, and in turn, Dex has complained to her about spoiled kids at Samwell, and missing hockey, and the stupid kids who broke his mother’s kitsch garden statue of a bulldog with their damn baseball. Truth be told, he likes Angie; she’s solid and funny and calls him Pointdexter, which he doesn’t like nearly as much as being called Dex, but takes anyway. They have an easy banter that succeeds primarily because of its absence of depth, because of the very brief encounters in the very specific context of coastal Maine in lobster season. Dex thinks maybe he should invite Nursey to visit.

“Huh,” is all that Nursey produces after a solid ten seconds.

For the first time in his life, Dex wishes school would start sooner.

 

 

Fall

 

They’re three for three at the start of the new season, and Chowder’s gotten a shutout twice already. It’s pretty amazing. Dex feels like he’s floating, and it’s probably gross, but he’s worn his SMH hoodie four out of five days this week, he’s so proud. He feels that bubbling, proud feeling especially with Chowder and Nursey — the three of them, frogs then, now, and forever.

And tonight they’re drinking in Chowder’s new room with a bottle of tequila. Dex hates tequila, but Nursey insisted it’s the most celebratory of the hard liquors, and, well, Dex can stomach it if it makes Nursey shut up.

“Chowder with the big save.” Nursey says, high-fiving Chowder as they settle deeper into the bean bags on the floor of his room.

Dex, seated comfortably on Chowder’s bed, is silently thankful for the space he has to himself. The last thing he needs is Nursey’s limbs tangled with his while they’re drinking straight tequila. Nursey takes a swig from the bottle and hands it back to Dex. Chowder, who passes out at record speed on the floor between them, stirs a little when Dex reaches over him (extends himself too far on purpose so he can brush Nursey’s outreached hand with his fingertips) for the bottle. He can feel Nursey’s eyes trained on his mouth, his throat, as he takes a painful shot from the bottle. Nursey licks his lips.

They’re too old for this, probably, Dex reasons. Too old, and far too self-aware now for this to be anything remotely innocent. Dex wishes he had an ounce of courage to spare on the question that’s had him bogged down since the night on the roof last year: what are they doing? It’s a war of attrition, a stalemate. Neither of them shed the act for long enough to ask the other what’s actually happening, what’s going on between them, what it is that’s got them tied up in tidy fishing knots together. They put themselves in this position too often.

Their first day back as sophomores, Dex spotted Nursey on the front steps of the Haus and was hit with two hundred different emotions at once. He privately promised himself that this year, he’ll stop being such a fucking chicken shit. He should’ve known that he’s far too prone to being totally fucking useless around Derek Malik Nurse for that.

"Look, I'm Chowder's Nurse." Nursey snickers, pressing the back of his hand to Chowder's undoubtedly clammy forehead. Dex snaps out of his lame reverie.

"Oh boy, I know you've had too much when you start punning your own name." Dex sighs.

Nursey scoffs. "I'm not dunk. I make a great Nurse -" he starts giggling. "Some might say... I was born to be one."

“Maybe we should go.” Dex suggests weakly, refusing another shot. He could use fresh air.

Nursey pouts — another indication that he’s probably had enough for tonight — but delicately places a blanket over Chowder and follows Dex out.

Dex loves October first for the hockey and second for the weather. It’s not actually that cold yet, but it’s crisp enough that Dex can huddle close to Nursey on the walk back to their dorms without it being weird. He ignores the fact that Nursey presses back.

Obnoxiously, Nursey points out the leaves on every shadowy tree they pass and whispers, “Dex, it’s your hair.” Dex, for his part, pretends the steady commentary bothers him way more than it actually does. He’s rewarded for his mock-irritation when Nursey tugs on his arm, pulling him into his single dorm room.

“Just stay here tonight," Nursey slurs, “safer.”

Dex chuckles. “I live like two blocks away, Nurse. Nothing’s gonna happen to me —” he starts, but to no avail. Nursey hasn’t turned the lights on, so he wordlessly guides Dex to his double bed by the moonlight. Dex gives up and abandons his sneakers at the foot of the bed, gently guiding them in together and pulling the covers up. Unfortunately, the booze is wearing off. Dex blinks up at the ceiling a few times, trying to reckon with himself and the constant loop of what are we doing what are we doing what are we doing spinning through his dehydrated brain.

When he turns his head, Nursey's already dozing off. Dex sighs, gazing back up at the ceiling, puzzled by the warm press of Nursey’s leg against his, the very insistence of them sharing a bed.

Friends don’t do this, he thinks.

 

 

At the next Kegster, Dex decides the night could go one of two ways. Either he and Nursey will finally just fucking do something about their ever-growing, teetering Jenga tower of longing looks and abandoned confessions, or.

Dex is too fucking terrified to even consider the alternative.

Nursey’s in the living room, casually leaning up against the doorframe and talking to a group of people Dex doesn’t know. When he looks up and spots Dex, he raises his hand in greeting, and though he doesn’t stop talking, his face softens into a smile, eyes relaxed. Dex thinks, Fuck.

He’s going to do it tonight. Maybe they won’t get to, like, talk talk, but it’ll be something. It’ll be better than Dex lying awake in bed counting the different moves he could have made, things he could have said. Tonight, at least, he’ll own up to the fact that he’d very much like to kiss Nursey at some point before he drops dead.

Luckily, Bitty’s in charge of the AUX cord, which means the mood in the Haus is about 20% sluttier than normal. Dex isn’t sure how they determined that statistic — Ransom and Holster did the math one night — but it’s completely accurate. Whether it’s Nicki Minaj’s “Only” or that “Gasolina" song, the selection of music on Bitty’s phone never fails to make everyone move a bit sluttier, dance a bit closer. Unsurprisingly, several or more guys on the team have gotten laid after Bitty’s assumed control of the music in the Haus. Some (Nursey) would call it magic, others (Dex) would happily accept the objective truth that a heavy bass and sexually-empowered female songstresses makes people bold and horny. Dex, for one, feels confidence surging through his veins, which he accredits to “My Humps” sounding across every square inch of the Haus. That said, it does feel a bit like magic when he strides up to Nursey and slings an arm over his shoulders with so little effort he actually impresses himself.

“Hi you.” Nursey says, instantly crushing any last trace of Dex’s confidence. It looks like he hasn’t shaved in a few days, and Dex suddenly really needs another drink.

There’s a storm raging in Dex’s stomach. It’s nothing like the time he threw up on a girl’s shoes in the third grade because he had a crush, or like the time in bantam hockey when he realized boys kind of make him nervous the way girls do, or — yes — like the time he spent an entire summer pining after a girl who snapped bubblegum and wore bows in her hair.

This moment stands out as the single instant in his life he’s ever chosen to be bold. Dex is good at teaching himself how to fix things. He’s a patient, intuitive learner. That lump in his throat and swelling in his chest whenever Derek Nurse so much as looks at him, Dex has come to learn, isn’t going away. And it presumably won’t fix itself no matter how much Dex ignores it. So Dex has to do something about it or it’ll literally never go away.

“Hey,” he answers, and without prompting, without a fraction of a plan in place, Dex presses his mouth into Nursey’s for a real, honest to god kiss. It’s hasty and slightly off-centred and Dex can’t believe how good it feels. Besides the instant relief from all the turbulence in his ribcage, Dex feels like he’s elevated to a whole other plane of existence. Nursey clutches the back of his head and kisses back like he's starving. Dex, who is actively not thinking about anything besides how soft Nursey’s lips are, can’t help but be struck by how much sooner this could have happened. The thought knocks the wind right out of him.

“Dex.” Nursey says, breathing on Dex’s lips. “Jesus Christ.”

Dex prays it’s a good Jesus Christ and not a rejection Jesus Christ. “What?”

“Took you long enough.”

Dex sputters. “Me? Why was it up to me?” He demands, at once feeling incensed and painfully horny. “You could’ve — God, Nursey, what the fuck? Why didn’t you?”

“I’m just saying, dude, chill.” Nurse says, which is ten different kinds of enraging. But then he starts to run his hand through Dex’s hair and Dex is totally, utterly pacified.

“Please don’t tell me to chill right now.” Dex answers.

Nursey rolls his eyes and pulls him back in for another kiss. Dex will probably never be chill for as long as he lives, least of all right now, so he savors it and he rolls his hips in tune with Bitty's playlist and he lets Nursey devour him.

 

  
And when he wakes up the next morning in Nursey's bed, with several hickies blooming on his throat and chest, he laughs, and it's the best he's felt in ages.

**Author's Note:**

> What does one even say in end notes? I had fun writing this and I hope you had fun reading it? Comments are super appreciated? I haven't posted this on Tumblr yet because I don't have a writing blog and people I know IRL follow my personal? Thank you so much for indulging me by reading this and I hope you have a great day????


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